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Ernie behind the Foldaway Bed

He was pretty sure he wasn’t dead. He hadn’t met God yet or even Saint Peter. If he was dead, what were they waiting for? Ernie didn’t know what the afterlife would be like—nobody knew—but he was sure it wouldn’t be a giant bureaucratic mess like the United States government, with millions of dead people lying around in a state of suspended animation, waiting for clerks to get back from gossipy conversations in the break room so that papers could be processed and the multitudes of newly arrived souls could rise up and be sent off to whatever corner of Paradise was assigned to them.

He could not feel, see, smell, or taste anything. You might think he would be frightened or at least anxious and impatient, but he was not. Although he wasn’t able to hear anything of the world where he had lived for thirty-five years, now and then one of two voices would speak to him. They were soothing voices with a musical quality, one male and the other female, reassuring him that he was well and everything would be all right in time. They were Prozac voices, keeping him mellow and patient.

Rarely, a third voice intruded—deep, rough, ominous. It was not friendly like the others. It said things such as, “You belong to us, you useless worm,” and “We will have your brain,” and “We will kill all your kind, burst upon you, and eat you alive from the inside out.” Because he currently lacked the ability to run and hide, these verbal assaults would have distressed Ernie if the unknown maker of the threats had not always been abruptly silenced in mid rant, as though someone disconnected or deplatformed him.

Immediately after such an event, one or the other of the two soothing voices would assure him that he was loved, safe, and of such great value that he would never suffer. He was told that the threatening presence was “of a different genotype from us,” whatever that meant. He was informed that the thuggish speaker was “millennia younger than we are and less wise, lacking the intelligence and the means to carry out their stupid threats.” He was promised that he would eventually arise and return to life as he had known it. Ernie believed everything these reassuring voices told him; both the male and female speakers were too kind, caring, and convincing to be disbelieved.

Because he never slept in his current condition, he might have been bored if he hadn’t filled the hours by writing country songs. Several had the potential to be hits; even if they failed, they were worth composing because they were certain to irritate his mother. He needed no pen and paper to write the lyrics, nor did he require a guitar or piano to fashion the melodies. He had perfect pitch; when he thought of the notes, he could hear them. He visualized the tunes on sheet music, and with his eidetic memory, he could summon those staff degrees at will. Among the tunes he composed in the last few days were “I Drank My Way out of Her Heart” and “Cheaters Don’t Play Cards in Heaven” and “Drape My Casket in Old Glory.”